MASTER AND MAN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1748, 3 November 1917, Page 4

MASTER AND MAN.

Industrial strife, the destructive struggle between labour and capital, is a problem which has as yet defied solution. And yet because it is a fundamental problem of immense importance to society we must continue our efforts at its solution'. Lack of sympathetic understanding has been the chief drawback on either side, and the hope of ultimate adjustment lies in the direction of creating a tolerance in each for the other. To accomplish this much-desired end we must find some means of establishing new points of contact between labour and capital. Some substitute must be found for the valuable relationship which, before the coming of greater industrial concentration, existed between master and man. In the old days the master was himself a craftsman and was himself a teacher, the forerunner of the instructors in our technical schools. Master and man worked elbow to elbow; the shop was connected with the home, and the master craftsman’s oinlluenee moulded the thought of the man. Now, by the natural process of evolutions, the simple shop has become a many storeyed concrete structure, and the master has been resolved into capital, the apprentice and the journeyman into labour. We believe that the best way to bridge this gulf is to teach every boy, whatever his position in life, to work with Ins hands at some useful trade. —The Cabinetmaker.